In general, the impression I got from your effectiveness was that hapkido contained a great deal of internal power that I had never met in aikido practitioners. The sense that I got was not that you were doing a "harsh" form of aikido but that your hapkido was much closer to the daito root of aikido--that this shocking, electrical cannonball effect was something more like what I could expect from a daito ryu man.

I think one of the techniques I might have introduced you to was a 'fishtail' back of the hand strike to the floating ribs. There are a few things at work there. When done in response to a wrist grab one draws the opponent's grasping hand away from the body which puts the ribs under tension - so it hurts more when you hit them. One tries to fully relax that arm into a loose swing that ends in a whip-like motion. But one really does have to be loose for it to be effective and coordinate it with one's forward weight shift and the rotation of one's hip. The power is definitely not primarily arm generated.

Variations of this same technique are possible with knife hand or hammer fist but are cruder and less 'artistic'. They are also easier!

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David Orange wrote:

I take it you were never able to find anyone who could verify Sokaku Takeda's traveling with Yong Sul Choi?.

I did find people who confirmed that Choi Yong Sul trained with Sokaku in Korea. People like Kim Jin Pal an early student of Choi's who now heads his own 'han pul' organization. A very interesting man whose books you would be interested in I'm sure. However what he and others are confirming are the things that Master Choi reportedly told them of his training. I'm enough of a researcher to know that that doesn't make it necessarily so.

Kim told me that Master Choi studied with Master Takeda in the mountains of northern Honshu and that he kept a house there for Takeda that he would visit when he came through the area on his travels teaching. Kim/Choi made it seem that his teaching was very advanced and his relationship was very close to Sokaku.

He also told me that Choi was employed to round up draft dodgers during the seconf World War who fled to the mountains and that he was involved in very dangerous situations in connection with this activity. At the end of the second world war he was repatriated and returned to Korea but ended up living under bad conditions in the chaos of the country after the lifting of Japanese colonial rule.

He started teaching, first Suh Bok Sub and his employees at a makeshift dojang Suh created in the large brewry that Suh owned and later at a commercial school in Taegu. Later he also taught certain students privately at his home in addition to at the commercial achool. It was in this way that Kim Jin Pal learned from him.

Ueshiba Kisshomaru also confirmed that his father told him that he had participated in seminars in Hokkaido with a Korean man who later went on to found an art called 'hapkido' and shared the same Chinese characters as 'aikido.

But in any case, you have had in-depth experience in Japan with aikido and daito ryu, as well as your lengthy training in hapkido with Master Hwang.

There is enough overlap in the system to strongly suggest a connection between the two arts if viewed from a pured empirical stand point.

But there are also very important things to both arts which differ, so it seems clear that there is also some sort of disconnect there as well whether than be from hapkido's syncretic nature to joining dissimilar arts together, from Sokaku's teaching of Choi having differed from his way of teaching his son Tokimune (He taught Hisa and Sagawa differently as well) or from him adding his own thoughts and work to his art over the years.

Still some of the things I value most about hapkido are not to be found in Daito-ryu and vice versa.

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David Orange wrote:

Unfortunately, I haven't done those sutemi for quite a long time, myself. When I do, they have a natural feeling for me, but there were certain ones I never got the feel for.

Best to you and hope to see more of your commentary.
David

It may seem odd for a fellow in his forties to be saying but I still hope to learn the sutemi waza properly one day!

I'm not so big on posting here and there any more. It takes up quite a bit of time and it is generally not time well spent. I only knew about this post because someone posted it at hapkidoforum.com where I have friends posting. Still it is always a pleasure hearing from you and hearing about your experiences, which were extensive when mine were just beginning.